Some state sponsored ideas:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BAC_TSR-2

What the Brits were stuck with:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Dynamics_F-111_Aardvark

This is why Europe doesn’t just let Musk handle their launches.

Say you have this neighbor—and his name is Elon.

He will let you ride to work…let’s even say he does it for very little carpool money.

But if your are any kind of man—you find the situation untenable.

You want YOUR car.

He can have his—but you have yours.

With the Avro Arrow and TSR 2 falling awak for the F-111 some American businessman pawns on you—you want your European rocket to be its own thing—-because of the bad taste in your mouth.

So both those very different political ideas—having something that is yours—but being burned by having to rely on the caprices of the market that gave us the F-111—aviation’s latest Brewster Buffalo—you want launchers with a good background—and out of European pride.

In the same vein, however, old people are not taxed much, either. They generally receive taxes, not pay them. That means that public funding is in just as much, if not more, trouble than private funding.

The “there is not enough private capital, so let’s use public capital” argument doesn’t make sense.

I suspect that this is true in Europe, as well. How well funded is ESA and how much private capital is available throughout Europe? Although I don’t mind Europeans coming to America to launch their space business hardware, I think it would be better all around if Europe had its own commercial launch industry to satisfy their own launch needs. It would provide a free market alternative whose competition would continue to drive American companies to continue to improve their services and prices as well. Better all around.

From the article:

The chief of Arianespace could not be more clear: He does not want any competition for Vega C and Ariane 6, nor does he believe any commercial European company should have a chance to compete for the development of a next-generation reusable rocket.

The chief of Arianespace could not be more clear: He believes in central control, central planning, and government monopoly rather than free market forces. Too bad for him, because Europe is in competition with other countries and with free market companies, and those who are allowed to choose launch services from outside Europe will find he best deal for themselves rather than be trapped with worse deals using Europe’s limited supply of launchers.

With a lift capacity of about 2 metric tons to low-Earth orbit but a price of nearly $40 million, the Vega rocket is not price-competitive with commercial rockets nor India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.

By “autonomous access” he means independent manned missions. And Ariane 6 or Vega C will? I don’t see the political will to pour billions into that, while their citizens watch Aussies and Brazilians going into space on US ships and doing research and development in US space stations / labs /factories.

After a belly full of that, elites like him will probably seek to hitch a ride with the Chinese. After all “autonomous” to them really only means independent of you-know-who!

I just hope the US doesn’t stupidly help pay for international communism to spread off Earth!

He is just afraid that they will eventually take his lunch(launch) money away.

The needed capital and the desire to spend it does not exist in Europe.
The European market is not the same. So competition between private and public agencies will not work.

When the private start ups get momentum, he will see the need for Arianespace evaporate, because there will be cheaper options.
It will no longer be needed. NASA, which has decades of National Pride behind it, as well as selectively placed locations in key voting districts, has built in guarantees for long term funding. ESA, to my knowledge, does not. And so he wants to block the private start ups to keep his job.